I'm sort of indifferent to them. They're nothing special, but it's nice to see how the matches go I guess.

Having the PTC Final's final as a best of 7 though is just disgraceful, that's what has always bothered me most. A ranking final, especially for the massive prize money (Perry won like £100 000 or something?) you win, should never be a best of 7.

Just realised that I have more posts on PTCs topic than most of the full ranking events.

I think that this happens because while we have a PTC tournament I stick on the livescore to check what happen in all the matches and I don't care so much for the televised one.

On the other hand, when there's a ranker I am focused to watch the game and don't have much time to post here.

The PTCs weren't such important tournaments like the full ranking ones (even the glorified PTCs like the Welsh Open), but I will somehow miss what I am doing even right now: checking every 30 seconds the livescore for all the matches, see who is on a good break etc.

Vallomas wrote:Just realised that I have more posts on PTCs topic than most of the full ranking events.

I think that this happens because while we have a PTC tournament I stick on the livescore to check what happen in all the matches and I don't care so much for the televised one.

On the other hand, when there's a ranker I am focused to watch the game and don't have much time to post here.

The PTCs weren't such important tournaments like the full ranking ones (even the glorified PTCs like the Welsh Open), but I will somehow miss what I am doing even right now: checking every 30 seconds the livescore for all the matches, see who is on a good break etc.

I will. I think it's great from the open to everyone and on TV aspect. Anyone can enter, and if you're good enough and the draw hands you a top player, a chance to play on TV. It's a big shame if that aspect is lost.

The PTCs won't be totally scrapped, I have on good authority that there will still be 3 next season, namely the Paul Hunter Classic, The Gibraltar Open and another one which I and I bet World Snooker doesn't even know yet. But I think the Bulgarian Open and Riga Open will be removed from the calendar, and Gdnynia probably as well, which only leaves us with the one in Mullheim. I don't know about Asian PTCs, but probaly at least one will be scrapped too.

But PHC and Gibraltar certainly won't be removed, Gibraltar has a 3 year deal.

Andre147 wrote:The PTCs won't be totally scrapped, I have on good authority that there will still be 3 next season, namely the Paul Hunter Classic, The Gibraltar Open and another one which I and I bet World Snooker doesn't even know yet. But I think the Bulgarian Open and Riga Open will be removed from the calendar, and Gdnynia probably as well, which only leaves us with the one in Mullheim. I don't know about Asian PTCs, but probaly at least one will be scrapped too.

But PHC and Gibraltar certainly won't be removed, Gibraltar has a 3 year deal.

Riga Open, Paul Hunter Classic and Gibralter Open will be back but as stand alone tournaments not European Tour Events

its not yet known if Amateur players will be eligible for PHC and Gibralter however Paul Collier has told me that Riga will be a flat 128 that is if he trully knows.

it would be a shame if they aren't open to amateurs that has always been the most enjoyable aspects of the PTC and this week Ryan Causton reached the Last 16 beating two seasoned campaigners Ryan Day and Dave Gilbert on route.

Pink Ball wrote:Would love if the Paul Hunter was made a pro-am ranking event - it's a really special tournament

The PHC was a tournament before PTC and Barry Hearn as a Pro Am it would be a travesty if it was hijacked away from the Amateur game completely

I agree, and a lot of amateurs should be allowed play. In the way that the Masters is considered the world's most presitigious invitational, the PHC could be the world's most prestigious pro-am - though this could probably only be cemented in the future with substantial ranking points.

I will definitely miss the European Tour events. The Asian Tour maybe not so much but more about it later.

The reason why the PTCs were created was to give us (and the players) more tournaments and in that sense they have served their purpose. However, the tournaments have been benificial in many other ways too. First of all they have helped to export snooker to new countries. The threshold to organize a European Tour event is nowhere near as high as hosting a full ranker. Romania (European Championship) will be the first new country in a while to have a full ranker but thanks to ET events countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and so on have been able to have an event. Getting rid of the ETs means that new countries are less likely to organize professional tournaments meaning a setback for the international development of the sport. (The new British events mean that the tour is even more UK-centered than it has in recent years, which I regard as a setback. The European Championship is a refreshing exception as all the rounds will be staged in Romania but this matter doesn't belong to this thread.)

That's why I don't miss the Asian Tour that much. All the tournaments were held in China (despite one being planned to be held in Singapore). And you can't really call one event a tour, can you?

Another reason why I think the ET events were useful is that they gave the players a chance to retain (or regain) their tour card even if they had had a bad rookie season. That's exactly what the likes of Chris Wakelin, Mitchell Mann, Scott Donaldson & co have done. Even after one terrible season the players should in my opinion have a chance of staying on tour with a good season (without 'doing a grace' or 'doing a dunn'). A few years ago some tour cards were allotted based on the one-year ranking list and I sincerely hope those will return.

It goes without saying that the amateurs will suffer. Of course the entry costed quite a lot but [some of] the players got to try their luck with pro players and they had a chance to get a tour card either directly, via the order of merit (where they competed against current professionals) or via some kind of an amateur event. I strongly believe an order of merit of some kind is a fair way to allocate tour places and now that route is cut off. The local amateurs had a chance to face international opposition, which, I think, did them no harm.

Of course the European Tour events had their downsides such as short matches, table conditions, schedule problems etc. as well. But they had lots of upsides too so I will definitely miss them.

Hearn says they lost £70,000 per event which sounds unbelievable, considering they were short events, venues were mostly packed, hundreds of players were paying entry fees, and there was Eurosport and some other sponsors too. And Hearn is supposed to be a good businessman.Agree with Marko, they were good for snooker's development. Shocking that we get the Home Series instead

Yes and I'm really starting to hate Hearn. These tournaments were great for amateur players to test their skills and try to make some surprises. I never watched them on TV too much, only on Sunday (semis, finals) but I really like the system. And Championship League nonsense still survives... BTW what is the reason to cancel PTCs?